I wanted to go for an early morning swim this morning but the BBC site states that the tide is going out in CLACTON - now, my mother always warned me about that one - swim on an incoming tide.

RIK ALLEN and his surfing brigade in the US knew all about RIP TIDES...SANDLER told me that surfers surf on an incoming tide...because even if a wave crashes down on you, you get knocked out because you hit your head on something in the undertow...the waves will always throw your body back onto the beach...however, the rip tide will take your body out to sea upon an outgoing tide...

Anyway, MCDONALD showed me this site about RIP TIDES...and the accompanying cartoon of how a RIP CURRENT apparently works...MARK R came in and told us all that he was our RIP CURRENT and that we simply had to 'go with the flow' with him...

http://www.ripcurrents.com.au/Rip-Currents-Safety/What-to-do-in-a-Rip-Current.aspx

WIKI has the same sort of information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rip_current